From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1bc17347df0c2d32 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: fac41,1bc17347df0c2d32 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 1008e3,1bc17347df0c2d32 X-Google-Attributes: gid1008e3,public X-Google-Thread: 10db24,30e211d680226755 X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public From: Farshad Nayeri Subject: Re: Why one school changed from Pascal to C++ Date: 1997/05/06 Message-ID: <336F7067.5247@cmass.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 239787920 References: <33664F10.6B76@mathernet.com> <5kd7eo$2b4@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <8229B62E52EAC144.6C6C6DF4FB6915C3.A10EAF24E2BF24E1@library-proxy.airnews.net> <5kn15j$6sa@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Organization: Critical Mass, Inc. Reply-To: farshad@cmass.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.modula3,comp.edu Date: 1997-05-06T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Keeping to the topic of "Why one School Switched from Pascal to C++", I'd like to point people to an alternative perspective presented in an article Spencer Allain and I wrote based on a survey of some of the schools which taught Modula-3 in their CS curriculum. The article, "Teaching Computer Science with Modula-3" is included in the second issue of the Threads Newsletter: http://www.cmass.com/threads/2/#academia I suggest you take a look at this; M3 has worked out pretty well in the past few years for those who have taugt it. (Perhaps some instructors will be willing to elaborate on USENET, but it is near the end of the term and they are busy.) Indeed, I found a comment by one instructor quite impressive: > "Last year we had a programming project course > where we recommended the students to use Modula-3, > but some project groups chose to use C++ or Borland > Pascal. Most of the groups using Modula-3 did > complete the course in time, while many of the > others did not: > > Modula-3: 85% in time (22 of 26) > Borland Pascal: 67% in time (2 of 3) > C++: 0% in time (0 of 4) > > We found the top advantages of Modula-3 to be: its > similarity to but without the shortcomings of Pascal, > its support for modularization, garbage collection > and the standard library." See the article for more elaboration, including a list of some of the academic resources available for Modula-3. Best Regards, -- Farshad -- Farshad Nayeri farshad@cmass.com Critical Mass, Inc. http://www.cmass.com Cambridge, USA +1 617 354 6277 P.S., I shouldn't have to say this, but as with any publication, the article presents authors' bias, and its conclusions are open to interpretation! P.P.S., I have tried again to add comp.edu to the discussion, which I believe has a charter for such discussions. Though this is my last attempt!